Southport Magazine

“Hey, come over here. You’ve got to see this guy. He’s in his booth wearing his kilt.” Ok, well, that’ll get my attention. The lovely and talented Lisa and I were enjoying the 4th of July Festival in Oak Island’s Middleton Park. She was browsing the craft booths while I tried my hand at photographing pro wrestling. But the spandex got put on hold, because there was a guy in a kilt selling stuff nearby. 

Lisa was thinking I’d want a photo of the kilt guy for the magazines, but as it turned out he was selling a product called Whiskey In A Week, so now we have a Cheers column. 

I introduced myself to Kilt Guy, Dr. Rutledge Ellis-Behnke, PhD, and he told me all about his invention. He was selling a kit that purported to produce, as the name promises, Whiskey In A Week. The kit included a mason jar, a bag of small wood chips, a screen and instructions. All that was needed to complete the set up, he said, was the alcohol. He showed me two bottles of brand name moonshine that he recommended, but said that 50 percent diluted grain alcohol would also work. 

The process seemed simple enough, just fill the included mason jar with moonshine and pour in the wood chips. After that it’s just a waiting game. He recommended tasting after three days, then each day there after up to a week finally stopping the process and pouring your new whiskey back into the moonshine jar through the screen to filter out the wood chips. He even said the process could be repeated with the used chips and some vodka to create a version of Scotch. 

Worth a shot. The kit cost $25 and the moonshine (I found the exact brand he recommended at the Southport ABC Store) another $20. I’m used to spending at least that much on my bourbon, and with the added fun of making it myself it didn’t seem like that bad of a deal. 

When I was ready to get my project going I unpacked the jar and found the the instructions were easy to follow and even included tips for tasting when it got to that point. I poured everything together and screwed on the top and waited three days. 

It certainly looked like it was working. The clear moonshine was taking on a very pleasant brown hue. I gathered the lovely Lisa and we poured a bit into a glass and swirled and sniffed. It smelled like moonshine. No worries, we said, maybe it’ll taste different. Nope. Tasted like moonshine. Oh well, this was only the start of the tasting process so we screwed the cap back on and waited another day. 

The second tasting was virtually indistinguishable from the first. Back on the counter it went. I forgot to taste on Day Three and by Day Four things were looking pretty promising as the color had gotten richer. We poured and sniffed. Hmmmm. We tasted. Darn it all, this stuff still tasted just like moonshine. Granted, it was pretty brown moonshine, but definitely not very whiskey-like at all. 

By this time I was getting a bit frustrated and I guess that affected my brain because I completely forgot about it until Day 10. Well, maybe Whiskey In A Week was really Whiskey in A Week and A Half? Nope. Still tasted just like moonshine. I gave up and poured it out into the old moonshine jar and there it sits on my counter still. 

I guess it is true that some things just can’t be rushed. Bourbon sits in its white oak barrels for many months, not a week. Maybe that’s the key, time. 

I’m tempted to give the Scotch trick a try, I mean it’ll only cost me a cheap bottle of vodka. But I don’t have very high hopes for that either. I am a bit disappointed, the good Doctor was a really nice guy and very enthusiastic about his product. While I can’t recommend it for a bourbon drinker like myself, it was certainly a fun project. Maybe you’ll have better luck? If you’d like to try it out for yourself, you can order your own kit at www.WhiskeyInAWeek.com, and if you do try it out, please do share your experiences with us.